The Limits of Infinity
by Hawki
Summary: Oneshot: Even infinity had its limits. Or at least the ship that bore its namesake did.


**The Limits of Infinity**

Spartan Cromwell was dead.

Sarah didn't know him. She knew she was meant to. There was the expectation that as commander of the Spartan branch, and as de facto XO of the _Infinity_, she was expected to know about the people under her command. Even before the universe had changed, she'd been expected to know these things, or at least, act like she knew them. Not that she appeared on cameras much, but then again, she was a Spartan-IV. The best of the best. A shining beacon to humanity. Someone to be worshipped and feared in equal measure. Not that she'd had any worship given to her, and right now, she didn't want any, but still…the order that had created all four Spartan programs was long gone. But the expectation of that brilliance remained.

Which meant that, in light of Spartan Cromwell's death, it was the perfect slipspace storm, with the usual amount of shit that was to be expected. Because Fireteam Alexa had lost one of their number in their evacuation of Ceros Colony. A backwater orbiting a red dwarf that had escaped the notice of the Created until now. 108 people had been there when they landed. 24 of them had lived long enough to make it to the _Infinity_. Sad truth of the matter was that meant 84 fewer mouths to feed than Captain Lasky had hoped for. Still, they were scientists. Eggheads. More eggs, the more chances the UNSC (if it could even be said to exist anymore) had of finding a way to defeat the AIs that were running the show. But until that happened, that meant that the flagship of a functionally dead organization had failed to save over 80 people, and they'd lost a Spartan in the process. Lost hope, lost the chance to set an example, lost yet another soldier that couldn't be replaced.

Small wonder, Sarah reflected, that Spartan Shelby looked ready to kill someone. And not because for the last four hours, she'd been killing some_things_.

"The hell happened down there?" Sarah asked as she walked over.

Shelby lowered the flask she'd been drinking from, one which smelt of a substance that sure as hell wasn't water. "The fuck you on about Commander?"

"Language, Lieutenant."

"Language." She took another swig. "Language and sticks are all we've got against the Prometheans now, Palmer, in case you haven't noticed." She nodded towards Cromwell, whose body was being taken away on a stretcher carried by eight deckhands. "Cromwell least tried to fight with his big stick. Problem is, enemy's got bigger sticks. The type that impale you."

That Cromwell had a big gaping hole in his chest hadn't escaped Sarah's notice. Nevertheless, she kept pressing Shelby. "You still haven't told me what happened."

Shelby screwed the flask cap on. "Aren't debriefs a thing?"

"The abridged version."

"We turned up, per your orders. Same orders you've been giving fireteams for years, like we're on some kind of bloody spinning wheel of mission selection. We turn up. Prometheans are there. Civvies are either taken, or dead – usually in horrible ways, and trust me Palmer, I've seen my share of shitty ways to die. So, we fight. We hold the line. We get them into Pelicans, we get ourselves into Pelicans, and Cromwell dies somewhere along the way. Basically, a Tuesday."

"It's Monday."

"Ah. So that explains why the mission went south." Shelby glanced at the rest of Alexa, the other Spartans just lying against the side of their Pelican. "Or, I dunno. Maybe when I write a report that no-one's ever going to read, I'll get to the bottom of things."

Sarah gave Shelby a good look. Her hair was plastered to her forehead and drenched with sweat, not to mention longer than regulation length allowed. Her right eye was bloodshot. She'd lost her left eye a year ago to a Promethean, one which, deprived of its weapon, had managed to gouge it out. Her breath smelt of the same substance that came from the flask. Under normal circumstances, she'd have sent Shelby to the brig and tell her to get ready for a hearing. But then, these weren't normal circumstances. Things hadn't been "normal" since a metallic angel appeared above Earth three years ago and signalled the end of thousands of years of history.

"Take a breather," Sarah murmured. "Maybe a shower too."

Shelby took another swig before going to join her team. Sarah clenched her fist, and even being clad in naught but a jumpsuit, that got a few deckhands to put some space between her and them. She could push. She could pull. She could try either of those things to get Shelby to at least give the respect her rank deserved, but if she pushed, Shelby might fall off the edge. If she pulled, her arm might be broken. And either way, she'd be down another Spartan. The ship would. Humanity would.

_So what's the plan then? _She looked around the deck, far emptier than it was even a year ago. _What the hell are we even doing?_

The deck had no answer. Nor did anyone on it.

There was only one person on this ship who might.

##

The door opened only halfway when she approached it. It wasn't that hard with her augmented strength to get it to slide open completely, but still…

"Don't you knock?"

But still, that the door to Captain Lasky's quarters wasn't working properly was the least of her concerns. Well, maybe not the least, ever since that attempted mutiny just a few months ago, but in the grand scheme of thing, the door could be fixed. Many other things on the _Infinity _couldn't.

"Want me to knock? Lock the door," Sarah said.

Lasky grunted and she frowned. Of the things that couldn't be fixed, she'd come to realize that morale was one of them. The morale of the crew. Its marines. Its Spartans. And, as she was again reminded of, Thomas Lasky himself.

The room was dimly lit. He'd told her it was a bid to save power, but she didn't buy it – that was like trying to make more room for water in a dam by taking out a rock. And power or otherwise, that didn't excuse his own demeanour. His uniform barely done up, and giving a funny smell. His hair long and unkept. The beard that was growing with every passing day. And she might have been able to overlook that, if not for the clutter within the room itself. Books. Star charts. Empty MREs that hadn't been disposed of. Gingerly, she picked up one of them and frowned.

"Beef stroganoff, mashed potato, and peas," she said. "Nice?"

Lasky didn't say anything. He was just seated at a table in the centre of the room, holding a glass of water in one hand, as he stared at a star chart.

"You know there's one bright side to the food supply thing," Sarah said. "Given how the ship's on its last legs, we'll suffocate or freeze to death before we starve."

Lasky remained silent.

"Which would likely be a worse way to go than Spartan Cromwell," she said, frowning.

Lasky said nothing.

"You…are aware that Fireteam Alexa took a casualty, right?"

"I've had a preliminary mission report sent to me," Lasky murmured.

"And?"

"And we've saved a few lives, and lost a lot more." He took a sip of the water. "Right now we're bugging out of the system, headed for its Oort cloud. Just need to find our next port of call."

"And?" Sarah murmured. She was clenching her fist again, and there was a similar tightness in her throat.

"And I'm wondering whether we should-"

She swept the star charts off the table, along with Lasky's glass. It shattered when it fell, glass and water spreading across the charts. After a moment, Lasky looked up at her. His eyes red, and the skin around them black. Looked at her in silence, with the gaze of a man halfway dead.

"I'm sorry, did I break something?" Sarah asked.

Lasky leant back in the chair. "Lots of things are broken on this ship."

"Really? And how about fixing them?"

He didn't say anything. He just leant back and closed his eyes, as if ready to drift off to sleep.

"Hey," Sarah said.

Scratch that, he _was _ready to sleep.

"Hey!" she yelled, clapping her hands in front of his eyes. He gave a sudden movement, staring at her.

"I'm sorry, did I wake you?" she asked. "Should I come back later? Maybe bring you bacon and eggs? Rub your feet? Give you a bath?" She wrinkled her nose. "God knows you could use one."

"You know water rations are in effect."

"Yeah, sure, but-"

"What do you want, Sarah?" He adjusted his poise, sitting upright, and resting his hands on the armrests.

"What do I want?" she asked. "Well, for starters, I want you to start fixing things."

"And how do I do that?"

She wished he'd yell at her. That way, she could throw what was left of formality out the airlock and start yelling back. Instead, he just sat there. Speaking in sentences.

"Well?"

Dull, pointed sentences.

"You're the captain," she murmured. "And I…" She rubbed the back of her neck and began to pace around. "My Spartans are on the brink," she murmured. "And if they're on the brink, how do you think the rest of the crew is? Three years, and all we've done is send soldiers to die in rear-guard actions." She stopped and looked at Lasky. "They need a plan, Tom. I need a plan. Because I've spent three years of my life bullshitting for you."

"Good. Then you're doing your job," Lasky murmured.

Sarah stared at him.

"Plan's the same," he continued. He got to his feet and made his way to a faucet. He poured more water into the glass. "We rescue who we can, and we attack the Created whenever the opportunity presents itself."

"Guerrilla warfare then?" Sarah asked.

Lasky finished pouring the water and took a sip, his back still to her. "More or less."

"Right," she murmured. "Should I point out that guerrilla warfare operates on the basis of wearing down one's opponent? Getting them to come to the table because of exhaustion?"

"I know how guerrilla warfare works, Commander Palmer."

"Really? Then tell me, how is that going to work on machines and an AI? You think that blue bitch gets tired? You think that her Brave New World that's ten-thousand years in the making is going to stop building itself because we knock out a few bricks? You think that if we play the game long enough, she'll lay down her cards and say 'hey, sure, you win, I don't want to play anymore?' Because that isn't going to happen Tom. Not with-"

"God damn it Sarah I know!"

She blinked, as he slammed his palms down by the faucet. The glass rocked, but luckily didn't fall. Water was hard to come by. Glass even harder. And hope? That was the rarest commodity of all.

"I know," Lasky whispered.

Even Captain Thomas Lasky was running out of it. Which was why, instead of shouting, she folded her arms and leant against the wall. Waiting for him to get the poison out of his system. A false hope however, as she waited a good ten seconds for him to do something. Say something. Act like a man who wasn't broken.

"I need something," Sarah said eventually. "The crew needs something. I can't keep sending people off to die without telling them what it's for."

"They know what it's for," Lasky murmured.

"And you know that's a lie that isn't cutting it anymore." She paused, waiting for him to respond, but instead pressed on herself. "You know people are jumping ship, right? Just two weeks ago, India 343 took off."

Lasky looked at her.

"Oh yes," Sarah said. "They thought a wasteland like Furth Five gave them a better shot at life than staying on the _Infinity_. Which, I have to admit, isn't exactly a five star luxury cruiser."

Lasky still said nothing. He just sipped at the water and looked away from her. His eyes were on an oil painting of an old _Halcyon_-class cruiser. A warship from a war that over 28 years, had managed to give mankind more hope than this one.

"Captain?" Sarah asked. "Tom?"

He said nothing. He just stood there. Staring.

"Tom," Sarah repeated. She put out a hand, and, after some hesitation, put it on his shoulder. "We need something, okay? Something that goes beyond sending out Blue Team with a flying light bulb, or Osiris to rally the masses who might otherwise have not cared about Earth. Because we're not winning. We're not even losing, because so far, this isn't a war. It's throwing stones at a concrete wall and expecting it to crack."

He looked at her and lifted the hand off his shoulder. "We stay the course," he said. "Keep reminding the Created we're here, until we're ready to take them on."

"And when will that be?" she asked.

Lasky said nothing. He just shuffled pat her, headed back to his seat.

"Hey," Sarah said. "Hey!"

He looked at her.

"This it?" she whispered. "Is this all you have for us? You're put in command of the most advanced warship humanity ever created, and you won't even use it?"

"You're dismissed, Commander."

"You know, you spent all that time telling me about your brother and mother, and how you were expected to follow them. Shame you never even mentioned that."

Something flashed in Tom's eyes. "Get. Out," he said, in a low voice.

"Hate to break it to you Tom, but the way you're going, you can't save us, you can't save humanity…"

"Commander, that's an order."

"…which is fitting, of course," Sarah spat. "I mean, you couldn't even save Silva."

He splashed the water against her face. She stood there, a chill running down her spine, and not just because of the water.

He looked ready to kill her. He'd fail, if it came to blows – even without her augmentation she could break his neck like a twig – but his ability to do so didn't matter. It was his willingness…and the despair keeping him from doing anything else. The same despair that got him to collapse back into the chair and rub his eyes. Too exhausted to even vent his anger properly.

"Captain?" Sarah murmured.

He said nothing.

"Tom?"

He said nothing.

"What I mean to say is-"

"Get out, Commander Palmer," he murmured. He leant back in the chair and closed his eyes. "And close the damn door when you leave."

She bit her lip, before murmuring, "yes sir."

She turned to leave, not giving a salute. Not caring that she might have done further damage to the door as she slammed it shut. Reflecting that, if she'd sealed Captain Thomas Lasky inside his quarters, it might not make a lick of difference.

But then, she reflected, no matter what the crew of the _Infinity _did, nothing would. Because numbers, technology, and even time were on the Created's side.

And even _Infinity_ had its limits.


End file.
